Parked the car downstairs, but Lin Miao didn’t rush home to lay down, instead, he took a shower to wash away the sweat smell, then headed out.
It’s just past ten o’clock now, there’s still plenty of time, especially after waking up to see his skeletal self sitting by the bed, how can anyone fall asleep like that; he certainly doesn’t want to disco with his ’other half’ in his dreams.
He drove all the way to Coastal Park in the beautiful spring area of Haywood. Compared to the backward and impoverished Santo Domingo, this place is much closer to the city center, far more developed, with tall buildings, thriving commerce, neon lights flashing everywhere, and the pedestrians here lack the weary feeling of Santo Domingo, mostly being office workers or company dogs.
No enormous chemical factories belonging to Huang Ban here, nor the pervasive industrial waste gas emissions, but something even more disgusting.
Even from a distance, the few towering skyscrapers in the city center stand out distinctly amidst the surrounding buildings, reaching an estimated height of four to five hundred meters at a glance, probably more when measured directly. No building in the city center, including the municipal building, surpasses the height of these corporate structures, and their shadows can be vaguely seen from kilometers away.
The towering buildings hide in the dark, with distant company trademarks and aviation warning lights forming eyes above the city, these enterprises seemingly like nameless deities, floating above the city overseeing everything in Night City, those eyes filled with disdain and worldly arrogance.
Doing business to this extent, probably is a scene those companies in his past life wouldn’t dare dream of.
But Lin Miao doesn’t like it.
It’s not because of some noble sentiment or morality.
It’s simply because he’s the one being stepped on.
The feeling of being trampled and powerless, having to exhaust all kinds of ways to barely survive using his limited resources, makes him utterly upset.
And so Lin Miao came to Coastal Park to relax, but as he walked around the road-side railings, he didn’t see what he wanted to see.
Even in the darkness, Lin Miao could feel the ocean’s pollution; the sea water was no longer blue and floated with black impurities, unknown if they were oil or other chemical waste. The salty sea breeze mixed with a faint chemical stench blew against Lin Miao’s face, his ears filled only with the sound of car horns racing by and the city’s clamor.
No flying fish, no birds, even the beach was black and yellow, this ocean like a long-dead decaying giant’s corpse, with the tides merely the waste gas emitted from its bloated body.
No wonder people here drown themselves in superdreams, reality has completely rotted away.
After a slight sigh, Lin Miao dialed a call.
Soon, a surprised female voice rang in Lin Miao’s ear.
"Mr. Lin... Is there something you need from me?"
Upon hearing Gloria’s voice, Lin Miao’s agitated mood unexpectedly improved a bit. This strong, independent woman left a deep impression on him. After all, though there are many employees at REO, finding the right person to sell to and getting a good price without being slaughtered is an art in itself.
"Hmm... Didn’t expect me to reach out to you so soon, did you, Gloria?" Lin Miao leaned against the railing, his tone somewhat teasing.
"No... what do you need?" Gloria was somewhat hesitant, holding a strong vigilance against Lin Miao; blindly finding people to do business with could lead to an unknown death, she took a long time through work-related tasks to find dependable mercenaries to sell her cybernetics.
"Looking to buy some things from you."
"But... I don’t have anything of value for now."
Her voice sounded a bit nervous, which tickled Lin Miao’s mischievous side, prompting him to say,
"Haha, you’re joking, right, Gloria? Could anything be more valuable than you yourself?"
"Hoo... " Gloria obviously caught on to Lin Miao’s joking tone, relaxing her mindset a little. She was changing clothes in the dressing room, her body usually hidden under a jacket now only wearing underwear, unexpectedly well endowed, though people’s pursuit of novelty meant such traditional figures had little appeal.
"Mr. Lin, you’d better not tease me, just state your demands quickly, or it’ll have to wait until tomorrow."
"Nothing particularly special, just want to chat and then negotiate a business deal, I won’t beat around the bush." Lin Miao looked at his palm, smiling as he said, "I want twenty sets of neural linkers and brain-machine external slots, 2000 units, if you have basic network access pods or cybernetic eyes, I can raise to 2000, they don’t need to be top-tier, as long as they work, even the ones in gangsters’ brains are fine by me."
Neural linkers... Brain-machine external slots... Cybernetic eyes.. and twenty sets...
Gloria’s mind was a bit muddled; though the names sounded grand, there’s no doubt these were junk items nobody would pick off the street.
Because these three items are the very basics for all cybernetic modifications, the former connects the brain’s neural network with other internal cybernetics for central coordination, the latter provides external linkages to read chips or connect to cyberspace, and at age 14 one can get them installed at a cybernetic doctor; they are not sold separately, and the doctor simply charges a 500-euro operation fee. Everyone’s got a set in their heads, from the eighty-year-old granny to minors in Night City.
Because only by installing linkers will you spend money on subsequent cybernetics, only with external slots can you read chips. Without these, you cannot compete at work, you have no choice but to install them. This is called demand creation—only cybernetic eyes and network access pods are somewhat valuable, though even cheap ones aren’t worth much.